Celeb Relationships That You Forgot Ever Happened

The following article includes mentions of drug and alcohol addiction.

The dating life of celebrities has been front page news ever since Hollywood was invented. And for stars who have been in the public eye for decades, the shallow dating pool they swim in leads to a lot of speculation, breakups, and sometimes even wedding bells. (Don't forget that prenup, folks!) However, some celeb pairings feel like Hollywood's throwing darts at a dartboard.

Do you remember the time Drew Barrymore ghosted Christian Bale after one date? "We went to see some bloody awful horror film, and that was the end of it. She never called again," Bale told GQ Australia (via the New York Post) in 2012. How about the time Lenny Kravitz was a landlord to one Nicole Kidman, and they fell in love? We assume she was never late on rent. And did you know that a member of NSYNC once fell for Pink? "Joey Fatone was in love with me," she told Glamour in 2013. "He took me to Friendly's on a date, and he bought me an ice cream. Such a sweetheart. He asked my dad's permission."

So many celebrity romances, so little time. But let's take a stroll down love lane and revisit some celeb relationships that you forgot ever happened.

It seems like Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively have been together forever, but the "Deadpool" star almost walked down the aisle with iconic '90s rocker Alanis Morissette at the turn of the 21st century. After meeting at Drew Barrymore's birthday party in 2002, the fellow Canadians got engaged two years later. "We have the perfect combination of compatibility and incompatibility that makes the relationship very passionate," Morissette told People. "It's perfect. I think it's about stretching each other."

Sadly, that turned out to be short-lived. "Ryan Reynolds and Alanis Morissette have mutually decided to end their engagement," their publicists said in a joint statement in 2007 (via People). "They remain close friends and continue to have the utmost love and admiration for each other. They ask that their privacy be respected surrounding this personal matter." 

During a 2008 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Morissette called their breakup "the straw that breaks the camel's back" after a string of high-profile splits. "It's having had too many of them. And I was a full-blown love addict, so it was like, 'I can't keep doing this, my body can't take it,'" she revealed. "Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it's debilitating." Morissette then did what she does best: turned her heartbreak into an album with 2008's "Flavors of Entanglement." She stated, "I entered into my own version of rehab."

One of Ryan Gosling's first big breaks was co-starring alongside Sandra Bullock in the 2002 crime thriller, "Murder By Numbers." But it turns out that it was also love by numbers behind the scenes as Bullock and Gosling began dating despite their 16-year age gap. During a 2003 interview with Cosmo, Bullock stated that "movie sets are breeding grounds" for co-star romances and that she has "a hard time being just friends" with male co-stars whom she finds attractive.

When asked if she and Gosling were "just friends," Bullock replied, "Let me see if I can answer that politically and correctly. We're friends." A.k.a. relationship: confirmed. Bullock also revealed that Gosling taught her "to chill" during their relationship, saying, "I live my life at a manic pace, and he's taught me to disregard all that isn't important. He's like a little Buddha."

While these two only lasted a year, during a 2011 interview with The Times (via Us Weekly), Gosling stated that Bullock and Rachel McAdams were on his Girlfriend Mt. Rushmore. "I had two of the greatest girlfriends of all time. I haven't met anybody who could top them," he stated. The actor also gave a glimpse into why these relationships didn't work out. "Show business is the bad guy. When both people are in show business it's too much show business," Gosling explained. "It takes all of the light, so nothing else can grow."

Salma Hayek and Edward Norton reportedly started dating in 1999, and their breakup was announced in 2003 by an unlikely source — Hayek's then-11-year-old "Spy Kids" co-star, Daryl Sabara (via People). In a 2013 interview with the Independent, Hayek reflected on her intensely private relationship with Norton. "We did thousands of things and nobody knows. Most of what is written about me isn't true ... It's almost like I have a parallel life that no one knows about," she said. The two remained close friends, with Norton even attending Hayek's 2009 wedding to Francois-Henri Pinault, per CBS News.

Fast forward to a powerful 2017 op-ed written for The New York Times, in which Hayek revealed that disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein had backed out of their deal to make "Frida" after she repeatedly turned down his advances. "And with every refusal came Harvey's Machiavellian rage," she wrote. "He claimed that my name as an actress was not big enough and that I was incompetent as a producer, but to clear himself legally, as I understood it, he gave me a list of impossible tasks with a tight deadline."

However, with help from former flame Norton, she was able to make good on those demands. "Much to everyone's amazement, not least my own, I delivered, thanks to a phalanx of angels who came to my rescue, including Edward Norton, who beautifully rewrote the script several times and appallingly never got credit," Hayek wrote.

Everyone remembers their first true love. For Liv Tyler and Joaquin Phoenix, the stars aligned when they were co-stars in the 1997 film, "Inventing the Abbots." During an interview with The Morning Call (via Yahoo! Lifestyle), Tyler revealed that the attraction was instant. "I fell in love with Joaquin the second I saw him," she said, stating that they kept their love affair a secret from the cast and crew. "I didn't feel threatened or afraid of the idea to get involved with him when we were working," Tyler added. "I just kind of knew and hoped and prayed that I would love him forever."

She even went vegan for him. Now, you know that's love. However, the pair split in 1998, and during an interview with Cosmopolitan a year later, Phoenix explained their breakup in the most Joaquin Phoenix way possible. "I'm a great believer in people coming into your life, and you into theirs, for a reason," he said. "And I know that when Liv and I met, it was for a reason — I really needed her and she really needed me. And at a certain point, I think we stopped evolving with each other, stopped progressing, and made a very mature decision to move on, even though there was still a great love there."

For her part, Tyler told Elle in 2015 that she still considers "Joaquin and all of his sisters to be like family." She added, "He was my first love."

Did you know that Monica Gellar and Bruce Wayne dated for over half a decade? That's right, Courtney Cox and Michael Keaton split in 1995 after dating for five and half years. Speaking to People a mere four months after their breakup, a tearful Cox called their union "the most important relationship I've ever had" and referred to Keaton as "the most wonderful person I've ever met." The "Friends" star added, "We still love each other."

The pair were rarely seen together in public, but Cox claimed that all "the things we liked to do were all in the neighborhood," like shopping, going to movies, and cooking at her place. "He always came up with the most clever ways of making a line funny," she revealed, describing their practice of reading movie scripts together. "No matter how upset or pissed off I was, Michael could make a little face and crack me up."

Cox had met Keaton in 1989 after being a fan of his work portraying an alcoholic in the drama, "Clean and Sober," and their first date was at her house. "We talked for five hours," she said, adding, "We were sympathetic on so many levels. If something weird happened, we would turn to each other and just say, 'I know.'"

Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr. met on the set of 1984's "Firstborn" when they were both teenagers, and they immediately started dating. However, the pair broke up in 1991, because the future "Sex in the City" star grew tired of dealing with Downey's now-infamous past drug and alcohol addiction (via Vanity Fair). 

"[Sarah and I] actually had a very conservative relationship considering the fact that she was normal, and I was out of my mind," the "Iron Man" star later told Howard Stern in 2016. "I did the best I could." For her part, Parker told People that being with Downey "taught me how I love." But while reflecting on their relationship, she also revealed that being with Downey eventually turned into a mother-son dynamic: "The things that I ended up caring about and the way I cared for Downey, were things that might be more suitable for a parent." Ouch.

During an appearance on the "WTF Podcast with Marc Maron," Parker revealed that she stayed with Downey longer than she wanted because she was afraid he'd end up dead if she left him. "I just summoned the courage to leave him," she said. "The biggest, hardest choice about those kinds of relationships is feeling brave enough to leave, even if you're afraid they're going to die," Parker explained. "Because you stay, not because you're in love anymore... I just didn't want him to die. But we're friends, still."

If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren met in 1980 on the set of "Excalibur," and the sparks instantly flew. While both were guests on "The Graham Norton Show" decades later in 2018, the pair reminisced about their relationship. "We didn't [just] date, we lived together [for four years]," Mirren said. "We were a serious item for a while."

Neeson recalled his first time visiting the movie's set, when he and fellow actor Ciarán Hinds were asked if they wanted to meet Dame Mirren, who was already filming and in costume. "She walked from like a hundred yards away dressed as Morgana le Fay, and Ciarán's my oldest friend, and we both went, 'F**k,'" Neeson said to a laughing audience and a blushing Mirren. He added, "I was smitten. I think Ciarán was smitten, too, [but] I was certainly smitten." Mirren replied, "You never told me that before, that's amazing."

The relationship ultimately ended, because while Mirren was already a huge star at the time, Neeson was not and couldn't seem to handle that. "It was difficult for him to be under my shadow," Mirren told The New York Times Magazine in 1994. "I was well known; I had the money." She added, "I had a sense from Liam that it was time for him to come out from under my wing. He handled it with great elegance and grace. We loved each other. It was difficult to let go."